I'm vice president for policy and director of technology studies at the Competitive Enterprise Institute where I write the annual Ten Thousand Commandments report on gov't regulation among much else. I'm a dad of four, can still do a handstand on a skateboard and enjoy custom motorcycles. I like the beach and our farm.

That’s because the Spring edition of the Unified Agenda of Federal Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions, published since forever (or at least 1981), never appeared.

Now it’s November and almost time for the Fall Agenda and its supplemental Regulatory Plan.

So the Agenda is two editions behind. Not only that, the Administration’s final 2012 Report to Congress on the Benefits and Costs of Federal Regulations and Unfunded Mandates never appeared.

I asked in early September, and the General Service Administration’s Regulatory Information Service Center told me, “Regrettably, as of now we don’t have a date as to when the Spring Unified Agenda will publish.

You’re better off waiting for gas in New Jersey, where it’s still illegal to pump your own.

Regulators make most law now; 3,807 rules issued in 2011 compared to the 81 bills passed by Congress that year.

But the year-old Fall 2011 Agenda and earlier bi-annual iterations still provide insight. The Agendas show President Obama’s administration completed 230 “economically significant” rules in his first three years, while Bush completed 151. (Economically significant rules generally are rules with economic impacts of $100 million annually; and yes, some of them lessen burdens.)

As for uncompleted economically significant rules in proposed and final rulemaking stages (consider these a “work in process” proxy), Bush had 241 in play over his first three years, Obama 401. Completion status of the most recent of these isn’t obvious because we have no Unified Agenda to follow up on them. You’d have to comb through the Federal Register.

For the broader less-differentiated “significant” category of rules (economically significant rules plus rules considered officially significant for various reasons noted in E.O. 12866), we can skip the Agenda and look at the Federal Register database maintained by the National Archives. It’s current to the present, so we can get some idea about 2012.

Obama has issued 24 percent more significant final rules in his first four years than President Bush did. Note of course that 2012 isn’t even finished yet, and the administration is holding back costly rules:

Post Your Comment

Post Your Reply

Forbes writers have the ability to call out member comments they find particularly interesting. Called-out comments are highlighted across the Forbes network. You'll be notified if your comment is called out.